


vengeance is best served dunked in a bucket filled with freezing-cold water

by craftingdead



Series: tumblr/discord prompts [4]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Humor, Gen, Mild Gore, Pre-Canon, Swearing, probably
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-06-15 22:21:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15422868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/craftingdead/pseuds/craftingdead
Summary: Max cleans up a wound. Ross tells an embarrassing truth. They both make a horrible realization.





	vengeance is best served dunked in a bucket filled with freezing-cold water

**Author's Note:**

> 33\. "I want the truth."  
> guess who the teenagers are ;)

“What the hell happened.”

Ross turned away from him. Blood was coated over the left side of his face, covering up the charred mess it had been before. Where his eye should’ve been was an empty socket, a gaping black hole in his head. Max could feel the heat pulsing off of the wound from here, the telltale sign of infection—compared to the awful stench that was coming off of his friend's injury, it wasn’t that bad.

The rest of Ross was covered in blood as well. Stained on his clothing, smeared across his pants, the legs ripped and bloodied. Max would have to see to that as well, he guessed, as they looked the same shade of angry crimson as the rest of Ross’s wounds. He sighed a dipped a rag into a cold bucket of water.

Ross winced as Max dragged it over his face, shying away from the cold water that he swore made the wound sizzle. The skin peeled away from him as the rag washed off the blood, leaving marks on the itchy fabric. Max gagged when he saw it, threw the rag across the room, away from him, and got another one, dunking it in the now lukewarm water. Nothing seemed to stay cold for long around here.

When he successfully got all of the blood off, Max stood back to admire his handiwork. Well, do his best to admire it. There was no way to save that side of Ross’s face, the wound had to be at least a third or fourth-degree burn, and his eye was done for good, seeing as it had been ripped out of the _fucking socket_. The hair on that side had been burned away as well, leaving several bald patches around the wound. Lighter burns resided there, but those could be healed with a treatment or pill of some kind and time, unlike the...other wound.

But that was something neither of them had, nor had the money to get. They had some treatments left from a kit Max had stolen a while back, but that was all, and the two of them needed to get out of here, and needed to go quickly. But with Ross’s wound, that seemed impossible. Max didn’t even know if he could stand being outside now, with a deformity like that. Ross wasn’t a proud man, but everyone can change. Unless...

Max turned away and went back to the tub of lukewarm water. It was too hot to be used as a soothing device for either of his burns by now, so Max begrudgingly pulled off the black bandana around his neck, slathered some of the anti-infection ointment they had left on it, despite it being way past its expiration date, and faced Ross again.

“Alright, now that we got the main issue resolved, what,” Max said, leaning down to look Ross directly in the eyes, “the hell happened.”

Ross shrugged, turning away from Max yet again. “You know the story. Went to go deal with those thugs that had been messing around with stuff they shouldn’t have been, came back a little worse for wear.” He pointed to the empty socket. “One of them got me in the eye.”

“Yes, Ross, I get that one of them got you in the eye, but how the hell did they manage to fuck with you this much? Did one of them set you on fire?” Ross wouldn’t meet his eye, barely breathing. The part of his face that was left was blushing in embarrassment. Max raised an eyebrow as he wrapped the bandana around Ross’s face, covering the wound up with the material and ointment.

“Nothing happened, it was an accident,” Ross replied.

“Ross. I want the truth.” Ross ignored him, and instead picked at the blood coating his gloves, flicking off the dry flakes one by one. One of the flakes flew across the room and hit his glasses, covering them with even more blood.

Max by no means was a squeamish man, but seeing those glasses, covered in blood and gore made him want to retch. Ross continued flicking.

He grabbed Ross’s wrist and forced it down and away from his glove. “Alright, I want you to tell me what the fuck happened, or I’m leaving without you. I can always find a new partner to travel with, and you might find someone who’s not as eager to heal you every time you get into a petty bar fight over synth rights or some shit.”

“Alright, alright, you want the fucking story? I’ll give you the fucking story!” Ross yelled at him, the haughty look he wore so fondly most of the time gone, and replaced with one of anger and annoyance. “These thugs cornered me in the back of some shop, we got into a tussle, broke a shelf or two, they ripped my eye out, everyone ran out screaming and then some, I don’t fucking know, teenagers or something accidentally started a fire in the backroom and I got caught in the crossfire and burnt to all hell. _Happy?_ ”

Max blinked. “You’re telling me...that you got fucked over by some street thugs...and then beat up by a couple of teenagers?”

“ _Yes, I am_. Fucking happy yet?”

Very.

Ross could barely flip Max off before he erupted in cruel glee, his sides shaking from how hard he was laughing. Tears gathered in his eyes and he was forced to kneel over as it shook him to his very core. Looking up and seeing Ross looking at him as if he just kicked a puppy into oncoming traffic only sent Max into another fit of giggles.

“YOU GOT FUCKED BY A BUNCH OF THUGS THAN GOT BURNED BY SOME ARSONIST TEENAGER. A FUCKING TEENAGER KICKED YOUR ASS WITHOUT MEANING TO THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY _LIFE_ —”

Max fell to the ground and howled with laughter as Ross crossed his arms and breathed very heavily, muttering something along the line of “ _I’m gonna kick that kids ass. They’re fucking dead I swear to god the next time I see them they’re a fucking goner…”_

The laughter that had been filling their small apartment finally died down, Max letting out a content sigh and grinning as Ross paced around the room, blood from the cuts and bruises on his knees still trickling down. He was muttering again, planning on how he would seek revenge on those kids and thugs, but Max couldn’t join in on the fun. He shot up, eyes wide and looked to Ross.

“ _Today was rent day, wasn’t it?_ ”


End file.
